Senior Road Trip

[disneyhooper]

1. Planning a two week road trip for four 18 year-olds, (two boys, two girls) for an after graduation trip in June 2019. We are planning on driving from Ohio to California. We have a list of places out west we would like to see such as the Grand Canyon, LA, Yosemite, and numerous other national and state parks. We are trying to stay under $2,000 a person, we will not be eating out much and will be trying to do many free activities. Are there any suggestions as to free/cheap places to visit and activities to do or any must-see places? We are also debating as to drive to California only stopping for rest or if there are places to visit in the Midwest before arriving, we would love any tips and suggestions you may have.

 

[usnuzuloose]

You can use these sites for discounts just put in the city....

Groupon.com
Livingsocials.com
Travelzoo.com

 

[SteveMP]

Personally I would add some stops along the way in NM and AZ, and even Utah if time. For example, Carlsbad Caverns national park, Chaco Canyon, gila Cliff, Sedona, Crater national monument, meteor crater, moab, monument valley.

 

[bcla]

I wasn't quite sure what was meant by "senior". I kind of imagined someone way older than 18.

If you can tolerate it, go camping. That will save lots of money, and you can use a camp stove to do simple (or even more complicated) cooking. Even if you can't, research where there are picnic areas where you're allowed to use a stove to do your own cooking, or perhaps find lodging that include a kitchen. When my family has gone camping, some mornings we're just boiling water for instant noodles. At other times we might cook dried pasta and heat up a tomato sauce. It's also a lot cheaper to just make your own coffee than buy it (if you're coffee drinkers).

And get one of these. If you were the other kind of "senior" I would have recommended getting the lifetime 62+ version that is $10 - at least until the end of this month when it goes to $80. However, for your trip you probably want the regular $80 annual pass. It's a pretty good bargain when the price per car at Grand Canyon or Yosemite is $30. It's good for a variety of sites, including NPS, Forest Service, and BLM. The annual pass has room for two signatures, so you can have two members of your group sign it, which might come in handy if you might want to enter but one member feels sick and needs to stay in. You can also request (won't always get it) a reentry pass for members of the group reentering a particular park.

https://www.recreation.gov/showPage.do?name=landing&landing=/htm/interagency/index.jsp

My big thing to save money when eating out is finding a place with happy hour. This might be in the more touristy areas, but occasionally you're going to get tired of eating cheap, and I've found that you can find really good stuff at a bargain price if you research it in advance.